Lost and insecure, you found me, you found me
Lying on the floor, surrounded, surrounded
Why'd you have to wait? Where were you? Where were you?
Just a little late, you found me, you found me.

-- The Fray


He doesn't want to be hearing this. He wants to go home; he wants to go to work; he wants to run until he's left everything behind. In the darkest and most selfish recesses of his mind the plea circulates: let me be anywhere but here.

Olivia is still sitting on the opposite end of the couch, just out of reach, her voice indistinct because her chin is resting on her drawn-up knees. Flatly she has been narrating her ordeal of a year ago, including the smallest details as though she will be quizzed on them, when they both know this really means that as hard as she's tried, she can't forget. She falters every now and again and then resolutely forges ahead, but her hands have been shaking for the past five minutes at least and he's not sure she even realizes; and he'd like to take her hands in his to still them but she flinches every time he so much as shifts his weight so he just sits there, afraid to move a muscle, and listens.

He doesn't want to be hearing this, because it hurts too much, but he can't help listening. Her soft words settle into place in his soul, pieces of a puzzle whose outcome he was supposed to know long ago. They're partners; her pain is his pain; there's been a place ready for it in him all along.

For all its impact it is not a terribly long story, made shorter still by the way she's telling it, facts only, as though it happened to someone else. He can sense that already she's nearing the end, having told him about the bed and the kiss and the mistake Harris made unlocking her handcuffs, her flight and the hiding place that was not good enough, how she surrendered and then ran again, but then she stumbles and seems unable to pick up the thread.

"And then what happened?" he prompts for the first time.

"And then… he cuffed me to the doorknob and…" Olivia knots her hands together. "Haven't you ever wondered," she asks haltingly, "how I knew to ask Ashley about the mole?"

There's a whole list of things he's wondered about her, but somehow that never made it. What now seems like a glaringly obvious oversight he'd attributed to the fantastic instincts he knows so well.

"Oh," he says feebly.

"'Bite me and I'll kill you,'" she quotes, her eyes distant. "That's what he said."

He reaches out and catches her fingers before she can wring them off. "And then?"

To his surprise she laughs bitterly and shakes off his hands. "And then Fin came to the rescue."

"I'm sorry," he says after a strained silence, because he doesn't feel he's said it enough yet tonight.

"Oh!" she says, sitting up straight so that she no longer looks quite so small. "I knew there was something I meant – Elliot. Listen to me."

Does she really think he could possibly do anything else?

"Elliot," she says again, forcing him to look into her eyes. "You need to know that Fin did everything right. There's nothing you could have done differently if you'd been under with me. It's not his fault, and it's not yours. Okay?"

It's not, but her eyes say Obey or else so he nods slowly. "Okay."

"Okay," she repeats, and as silence falls again she hugs her knees. This is where he's supposed to say something, but he's never been all that good with words.

He thinks maybe she's sitting out of easy reach on purpose.

"There's more," is what comes out of his mouth, to his own surprise.

"No there's not."

"I don't mean more to the – I mean – " He can't explain it, but he's following his instincts now and his instincts recognize this face and this tone and the set of her chin, a variation on the look she wears whenever she's dying to tell him off. Which happens on a regular basis.

"I mean," he says rather lamely, "there's more you want to say."

"No, there's not, El."

"Look, we both know you're not done talking."

"Yeah, actually, I am."

"Liv – "

"Don't you dare try to tell me about myself, Elliot."

"I thought that was our job."

"Our – " Anger makes her swell; he marvels at his ability to needle her so quickly, without even trying, and raises both hands in surrender.

"I take it back."

"You're an ass," she mutters.

"That too."

"And now you're just agreeing with me."

"I thought that was what you wanted."

"Since when do you do what I want?"

"Okay," he says, standing up, "now we both have to calm down." He paces a slow circle around the room, then sits back in the exact same spot. "I tried to pull you out, you know. Cragen shot me down. You probably would've been pissed if I'd succeeded."

"I'd've kicked your ass," she says.

"Naturally. I tried again when the TB epidemic hit, Warner seemed so disturbed to hear you were there, but the place was already locked down."

"Yeah, well," she says quietly, "that's how it started. I think I skipped that part."

He'd say I told you so, except that even he knows that's not what he was talking about. "Why?"

"It's not really important," she says, so steady that he knows she's telling the truth. "The inmates wanted to know what was going on, why whole blocks were being quarantined… it got loud. Apparently that qualifies as a riot in prison. Harris got there after the fact, asked who started it, and they gave him me."

He can't believe she's so matter-of-fact about this. Gave him me. "Did you? Start it?"

She shrugs. "Not really, but I helped."

As though that makes any difference. Elliot fiddles with the pop top on his untouched soda. He knows he should say something comforting but he can't shake the feeling that she's got more to say, that there are words there that she's not letting out. All he got from her were facts – no feelings.

Jesus Christ, he's turning into a shrink.

Across from him Olivia is stretching her legs toward the carpet. She opens her mouth and closes it again. He jumps on this. "Liv, just say it."

"This again?" Both eyebrows go up, a sure sign that he's heading for trouble. "There's nothing. Stop pushing me."

"C'mon," he says gently, turning towards her. "What's the matter? Don't you trust me?"

"Well," she says. "That depends."


He actually has the nerve to look hurt. She marvels at this. Didn't he even notice when they stopped confiding in each other? Is he really surprised?

"What's that supposed to mean?" he wants to know. "Depends on what?"

God, he's an idiot. Suddenly she's exhausted. It's a complicated equation, she wants to tell him, involving the exact proportion of professional to personal, raised to the power of the direness of the given situation and multiplied by his mood at the time. Maybe she should add an f-prime or one of those things that look like very sharp capital E's, just for good measure. In a moment her chin's going to start trembling, that's how close to the edge she is.

What comes out of her mouth is, "A lot of things. I think it's time for you to leave."

"What?"

"Now," she says, fighting to keep calm. "You need to go."

"Okay," he says slowly, puzzled. "Are you sure?"

He hasn't even stood up and she's already wondering if this, tonight, will change anything. If he'll ever be able to look her in the eye again. If she'll ever have the courage to tell him how she begged and cried and was at once so afraid and so ashamed.

She's wondering if he secretly thinks, like she does, that somehow she brought this on herself.

"Go!" she half yells when she realizes she hasn't answered, because he needs to get out of here before she loses control.

"All right, all right!" The couch creaks when he stands, the cushions shifting beneath her. Elliot shrugs into the sweatshirt he was wearing earlier and pauses. "Liv – "

"Elliot," she says through gritted teeth, "you really need to get home."

"I'm going! Call if you change your mind, okay?"

She doesn't answer, just sits there listening to his footsteps fade away down her little hall.

It's the thunk of the door as it closes behind him that breaks her. The tears that have been stuck in the back of her throat since reliving her humiliation now turn into sobs that threaten to swallow her whole. The pain sends her crumpling into herself, gasping for breath; and oh, she cries.

Because he's gone, and because after all that she didn't have the guts to tell him everything she's wanted to in the past year. Because she's still afraid. Because she knows Lowell Harris will haunt her dreams tonight.


The unease nags at him all the way down the stairs, but he's in sight of the door to the lobby before it fits itself into words that actually make sense.

This is what he knows: that what she's doing is pushing him away, that she does it to anyone who gets too close, and that it usually has little to no bearing on what she actually wants. And hasn't he spent the last few days kicking himself for letting her do it?

Here he is, again, taking her words at face value when he knows perfectly well not to.

Well. Not this time.

By the time he reaches her floor again he's out of breath, but he barrels down the hall anyway and pounds on her door. He wonders, irrelevantly, how many of her neighbors he's waking up, and he cannot bring himself to care. "Liv!" he calls. "Liv, it's me, let me in."

He listens but hears no movement so he knocks again, softer. "Liv? Just a minute, I swear, and then if you really don't want me here I'll go, but I wanna be sure you're all right first. Liv, c'mon, just open the door."

He listens again and this time catches the faintest of noises, somewhere between a whimper and a sob, a sound small enough to break his heart.


TBC…

Oh, the evility of it all... I love it. Mwahaha. (Yes, I did just make up a word.) I'm going out of town for a week. Hopefully I'll get a lot written, but I'll also have a lot to do when I get back (college looms ever closer, by which I mean twelve days from now). SO encouragement would be, as always, greatly appreciated. In the meantime I hope you enjoyed this!